Page 104 of Never Stop
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Brooke
Istared at the white ceiling as sunlight filtered in through the horizontal blinds. Easton had left to take Cheyenne to school, and I had an hour before I was supposed to be at Halo to work.
However, I couldn’t get out of bed.
Our conversation the night before played in my head as I thought about having a baby. Why was I stressing about it? This was what you did after marriage—or at least most people. I thought I was finally ready. When I told Nicole I wasn’t and that I wanted to enjoy the married life first, I had lied.
It was easy to say that one day I’d have a kid or that I wanted one. But the actual thought of becoming a mother was terrifying me.
I thought about carrying another human in my belly for nine months. Thought about the morning sickness, the nausea and everything else I’d seen, read or heard about the process. I thought about labor, and that freaked me the fuck out. I’d heard that some women shit while pushing. Shit! Like they’d just push, and instead of a baby, poop came out. I didn’t want to shit while giving birth. I didn’t even want to shit in front of Easton.
Then I thought about the actual baby and feeling as though my life would be complete.
Being a mother wasn’t in my blood, because clearly my mother wasn’t a very good one, but I had been a mother figure since I was thirteen. I knew I could do it. Plus, I had my husband, Jimmy, Jane, Nicole, Avery, Bailee, and even Cheyenne. Cheyenne would make the perfect big sister, and I wanted that for her.
Grabbing my phone, I pulled up the app to the medical offices I went to and made an appointment to get my IUD taken out. They had an available appointment for the following Monday, and I took it.
Easton and I were going to have a baby.
Wow!
It had almost been a year since my final day of radiation. Dr. Fisch had once told me that nerves did their own thing when it came to healing. Sometimes they would stop hurting over time. Sometimes they would hurt forever. Doctors had no idea why nerves acted the way they did. Could I stop taking the nerve medication? Would the pain in my tricep area still hurt? I wanted a baby, and that was more important to me. I could handle nine months of pain.
After parking in the Halo parking lot, I sent an email to Dr. Fisch to tell him I wanted to get off the medication.
Halo was its usual busy self on a Friday, and we had enough staff to run the show without Avery or Easton ever working. Of course, it was their bar, their baby, and I knew how Easton felt about his spawn, but little by little they both were trusting their managers to do a good job, and they were both only working a few hours a day.
Avery would come in when Nicole was working her day job as a nurse, and Easton worked while Cheyenne was in school. I worked when I had shit to do like give performance reviews, hire new staff, run to the bank or book bands to play on Thursday nights. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be working in a bar and booking gigs, but here I was, and I was loving it because it was something I could do for Easton.
I was counting the cash from the previous few days to make a deposit before the bank closed, but my mind was still thinking about the baby plan. “Oh shit,” I whispered to myself. “We need to wait until my next CT.” Planning for a baby was harder than I thought it would be. Or maybe just in my case since I had my past health issues.
Turning to the computer, I opened the internet, and it defaulted to my email. Dr. Fisch had written me back.
Ms. Bradley,
I’m happy to hear you’re doing well and wanting to start a family. The medication you’re on is a Category C medication which means that animal reproduction studies have shown an adverse effect on the fetus and there are no adequate and well-controlled studies in humans, but potential benefits may warrant use of the drug in pregnant women despite potential risks.
That being the case, you can still take the medication and be pregnant. If it were a Category D medication, then I would advise differently.
Let’s start by weaning you off and see how you do. I’ve called in a prescription to lower your dosage. Please follow the instructions and let me know how it works for your pain level.
Best of luck,
Dr. Fisch
I wasn’t exactly sure what all that meant except I was going to wean myself off and, no matter what,nottake the medication. I didn’t want to risk my baby even if there were no studies on humans. That first paragraph did saytheywould warrant the use of the drug in pregnant women. Talk about confusing! I also noticed I needed to change my name with his office. I was no longer Brooke Bradley.
Getting back to the reason I got on the computer, I logged into the website for Dr. Bloom’s office and sent him an email asking if I could move my CT up a month. I was past my one year mark and almost to the one year mark after radiation. I figured moving it up wouldn’t hurt.
Cheyenne came storming through the garage door and straight to her room. By the time Easton walked into the house, Cheyenne slammed her bedroom door causing me to jump and my eyes to widen in confusion.
“What’s that all about?” I asked him.
Usually, Cheyenne would say hello, I’d ask her how practice was, and then she’d ask about dinner. Tonight she was clearly upset.
Easton shrugged. “I don’t know. She won’t tell me.”
